Shaving
by fowl68
Summary: Kratos wished Lloyd had inherited something happier from him than a bittersweet smile and a lack of need to shave.


**Disclaimer:  
** I don't own anything!

A **uthor's Note:** So. I scribbled most of this down at work when I was bored. It's mostly just an interaction and partial character study. I don't write Kratos and Lloyd interacting very much, and it's such a pivotal relationship that I feel the need to explore a little more, so.

* * *

 _"Do I date disturb the Universe?"  
-Love Song of J. Alfred Profroct by TS. Eliot  
_

* * *

Kratos leaned into the mirror, carefully scraping the razor along his jaw. As an angel, his hair grew incredibly slow. He hadn't needed to shave in decades, but it still happened. He heard the rustling of blankets in the next room that they were all sharing—Asgard's inns were quite spacious, even the cheaper ones—and he knew from the heartbeat and the yawn that it was Lloyd.

 _(His son. He can't quite wrap his mind around it. Lloyd is alive. He's grown and healthy and happy. It hurts that Kratos hadn't been there for him, hadn't been there to watch him grow, and it stings somehow that Lloyd is happy without him and Anna)_

Lloyd shuffled into the doorway, feet bare, hair mussed with sleep and waving blearily. His son was never one for rising early. Kratos wondered what woke him. Then again, he'd crashed into bed the previous night; it had been a hard trek through the mountains this past week. Perhaps his body was simply done sleeping.

"Morning."

"Good morning, Lloyd." Kratos rinsed the razor off, aware that Lloyd was still watching him. "is there something you need?"

Lloyd shook his head, looking slightly more awake. "It's just interesting , is all."

"Did your father," The word stuck in his throat. "Never teach you to shave?"

"No need. I'm not real hairy, and dwarves don't shave. They trim their beards, but never too short. Short beards on dwarves are a sign of dishonor, Dad says."

The thought of Lloyd never seeing a man shaving was odd to Kratos. Kratos had very few memories of his father that could be considered 'good', but he did remember sitting on the counter and being fascinated at the difference between bristly and smooth. He and his father had fallen out before Kratos had been old enough to shave, though.

"You don't shave a lot though, right?" Lloyd asked.

"Why do you say that?" Kratos patted his cheeks dry with a hand towel.

"Because I haven't seen you do it once this whole journey. Most guys have to shave like once a week, or something like that, right?" Lloyd combed his hair back out of his face with his fingers, wincing when he hit a tangle.

His son was observant, even if he didn't have many book-smarts. "The men in my family aren't very hairy either." It wasn't a lie, exactly. He'd stopped claiming his father as family when he was fifteen.

"I wonder, sometimes, what my birth family was like." Lloyd leaned back on the door frame, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. "I don't remember anything about them, really."

"I'm sure they loved you very much."

The smile that tilted Lloyd's lips was something bittersweet and a bit too sad to properly belong on his face. _(It's an expression that Kratos recognizes from the mirror and he wishes Lloyd had inherited something happier from him)_ "Everyone always says that, and I'm sure they're right. Or, I really hope they are. But it's not the same, y'know? I don't know anything _real_ about my parents. I don't even have a photo."

The locket dangling from Kratos' neck seemed to burn at that moment. He wanted to give the locket to Lloyd now, to tell him the truth. But the truth was too much, too big. He could not simply tell one part of it without everything unravelling. _(The memory of Martel is an old pain, something familiar like a bone ache. Not like Anna. The pain from Anna is still fresh, still hurts every day, a pain that flares white-hot when he sees Lloyd. Too much has been sacrificed to simply let it all fall apart. He will do all he can so that Lloyd doesn't get caught in the crosshairs, but they are too close to back out now. It's not as if telling Lloyd would change anything anyway)_

Kratos was saved from needing to come up with a reply by Colette stumbling out of bed, her foot having gotten caught in the sheets. Lloyd was at her side almost immediately, anchoring her while she untangled her foot.

The moment passed, the locket no longer burning, and Kratos' heart untwisted just a little. His son was happy without him; his son didn't even remember him. Perhaps that was for the better. Kratos had never been anyone's choice for a good father anyway, and his son was grown now. Lloyd had a father; Kratos had even met Dirk, briefly. Dirk seemed like a good man, patient and kind and he'd raised Lloyd into this wonderful young man. No, Lloyd didn't need him.

So Kratos packed away his toiletries, setting them to the side of the sink since they wouldn't be leaving Asgard today, and took his shirt from the hook, slipping it over his head. He stepped back out and played the role of mercenary perfectly. He'd been a mercenary often enough in the past. This was something he knew how to be.


End file.
